Taranis
Elite member
Wow, now I am intrigued by the Umbrian similarity (All of Osco-Umbrian or just Umbrian?)
I just checked and re-checked, actually, it's both in Oscan and Umbrian. One major difference with the Celtic languages is that as Italic languages, Oscan and Umbrian do not lose the initial "P". Oscan ("Patir" means Father, just like Latin "Pater", but dissimilar from Irish "Athair").
Now I am wondering if this shift/change began early on but only in certain subgroups. In other words, did some settlers wind up adapting to the sounds common to those among whom they settled. (Possibly a widespread and related but pre-IE tongue) There is decent evidence pointing to that happening with the Goidelic branch.
Hard to say, I really don't know. It's clear that this shift apparently happened in Brythonic, Gaulish and Osco-Umbrian, but not in Goidelic, Celtiberian or Latin. Clearly, the Italic and Celtic languages must have been separated at that point already. I think, the reason why Goidelic is Q-Celtic rather than P-Celtic is really because it lay at the periphery. Iron-working arrived in Ireland from Hallstatt/La-Tene, but unlike Britain, it never saw large-scale* settlement from the continent (*if Ptolemy is to be trusted, there actually were Belgic tribes which settled at the southeast coast of Ireland, but it's clear that Ireland never received large-scale settlement there).
The German DNA mix also seems to be too clear to be coincidence.
Archaeologically, the Germanic people seem to have their origin in the Nordic Bronze Age, and they adopted Iron-working from the Hallstatt culture. Now, the Germanic word "Iron" (compare Dutch "Ijzer", German "Eisen", Danish "Jern") is a cognate with the Celtic word for "Iron" (Gaulish "Isarnos", Irish "Iarann", Breton "Houarn"), and I do not think that this is a coincidence either, because the Germanic people adopted iron-working from the Celts (around the late 6th century BC).
What's also interesting is that most cognates of Germanic with Celtic are typically apparently rather old, specifically, they must have been adopted to Common Germanic before major sound shifts occured. Notably, the Germanic languages have a shift from K->H:
"Marcos" = mare (German "Mähre", Swedish "Märr")
"Volcae" = "Walha-" (foreigner, as in "Wallonia" and "Wales", although the Celtic tribal name is actually derived from the word "falcon").
I am strongly inclined to associate the Gauls with Halstatt and La Tene.
That is when the Gauls really seem to burst upon the scene with a fury and enter on a wide expansionist phase. My question here is if anything specific could have been a catalyst for this (besides the arrival of the Iron Age).
It seems that the coming of the Iron Age in that portion of Europe coincided with the destruction of much of the Cimmerians by the Scyths. We know that many of the refugees went south into Anatolia. Could some have simply gone west and merged with Urnfielders? I would not be surprised at all if many of them found a home along that part of the Danube, even adding to the aristocracy.
Eh, consider that Hallstatt is an outgrowth/continuation of the Urnfield culture.